Chapter 35

Three days later Johnson was traveling by shuttle back to Earth. There was no reason for taking a ship that was any larger, and since they were in a friendly space with no need for a heavy escort, a few fighters would do perfectly well.

In the time he had alone in the ship's cabin he reflected on how he had gotten to this position. It was probably (or at least one of the) fastest advances of a military career in recent galactic history that weren't due to corruption or family ties. He wrestled. led with the fact that he was so young and in such a position of authority despite knowing he had achieved great success so far in his career. He would have wanted to give up this position and return to being second in command of the fleet, but he knew that he was still the best choice for commanding the fleet. All of Earth's other senior Admirals had been killed in both the first and especially second battle of Earth when the Empire had called in an orbital bombardment of the command facilities. With the exception of Harrington who was now dead the rest served in non-combat roles such as engineering or logistical support and were not fit to command a combat fleet. With the death of Harrington, he was now the best choice, as unfortunate as it might be. He knew that he had the capabilities he needed to succeed in that role, but there was still doubt in him. He had done more than enough to prove to himself that he was capable, but doubt still was prevalent in him.

He was able to hide his doubt, however, when he arrived at Earth and met with Secretary-General Albert Pierre and the other senior officials of Earth's various governments and militaries. He knew he wasn't able to be unsure and lacked confidence when in public.

But there was one person he could be honest with, one person that he could confide in. One of the few people he could say that he loved, and a woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Allison Chipper.

Being the head of the navy's research and development, she was of course present at a couple of the meetings he was going to. He winked at her a few times, but there was no other interaction besides professional concerns during this time. They planned on seeing each other later in the day.

At 6:00 Johnson arrived at her quarters and greeted her with the usual fanfare of embraces and kisses. But Allison knew something was off with him. Im fact she had thought something was going on when they had been in the meetings together.

"Will, what's going on." She said motioning to the couch. "You should be proud of yourself for what you have accomplished in such a short time."

"Allison, I don't think I'm ready to lead the fleet. I'm only 26 years old. In any other military, pro dodgy or not, I would never be anywhere near the position I am now for decades. There would be people more experienced than me, who would be able to help guide me. But now everyone looks up to me and expects me to have all the answers to their problems and solve them flawlessly."

"Who better do you know to take over the fleet, Will?" She asked. "Who else has planned an invasion of an entire Imperial sector and succeeded with an impressively low rate of casualties? I don't see any competition."

"That's the point," Johnson replied. "There is no one else left to take the position, so I have to do it. And I am still 26, and throughout life fairly inexperienced. It's not that I am unable to take command of the fleet, it's that I don't want to mess up and for people to unnecessarily die." He said.

"Will if you are scared of failure then why did you plan and execute the invasion of the Zoloch Sector. If that had failed the blood would have been on your hands." She said. "People die in war, and sometimes if you do everything right you will fail. That's the nature of the war you are fighting. And if you want to take this very far, since you are all the way over here on Earth, far away from the battlefields we will be fighting on, it will not be your fault, it's going to be the fault of the people over there." Allison said. "Now unless you want to ruin this evening you're going to come over and have dinner with me and we will have some fun in bed afterward." She said. His thoughts now drifted to what they were going to do later, and while his lack of confidence in this position still remained, it was rapidly going away.

The Imperial Palace, Coruscant

In the deep lair that held Emperor Palpatine, a lowly servant entered his grand throne room. Nowhere else would rival it, with the exception of the one that was currently taking shape on the secret second Death Star?

This servant was once a senior campaign aide to Palpatine during his senate and chancellorship elections. Now his role was to inform the emperor of developments through the galaxy, especially rebel activity. And he had some both disturbing and unexpected news for his master.

"My lord." He said as he bowed at the emperor's feet. "Little has changed since I last informed you about the Alliance's mid rim offensive. However, there is disturbing news from the Tibannas Sector and many of the surrounding ones."

"Explain." The emperor ordered.

"Over a year ago in the distant and frontier Zoloch Sector, the local moff ordered several expeditions into uncharted space within the unknown regions. These expeditions were not going very deep, so no one raised an alarm since you want to have all of those under your control. But they found something fascinating, a multi biome planet with a population of nearly 8 billion known as either Earth or Terra. It was a primitive world and had only limited spaceflight as we so thought, as the only objects in its orbit were simple satellites for communication and surveillance along with a small number of low-tech space stations. So the Moff dispatched a fleet to claim the world, as it was very wealthy in natural resources. But unexpectedly, a fleet of 50 starships was awaiting him and engaged him when he dropped out of hyperspace. They had no ships larger than a heavy cruiser but managed to defeat his forces as their technology level appeared to be similar to ours. The on that was brought crashed onto the planet, and when a counterattack was organized contact was lost a year later." He paused.

"Any further expeditions were halted as a large number of ships had been lost. But about a year and three months after the task force disappeared they started invading the sector. Together with local separatist holdouts, they were able to capture the sector in approximately two weeks with almost the entire sector fleet either destroyed or captured by Earth."

"Why was I not informed about this?" Spat Palpatine, holding the servant of his in the air. Only his knowledge that this person had helped him tremendously in the past prevented the Emperor from force choking his servant.

"My lord, I was only just informed of the events myself, in fact, I had no idea that this world existed at all, never mind had conquered an entire sector of your space." He said calmly. "It is why I got here early."

Satisfied with the answer, Palpatine let him down. "You mentioned the Tibannas Sector. Explain what their involvement in this is." He said in his raspy voice.

"Several of the local sector Moffs launched a counterattack against Earth's forces and demanded that Moff Illustrious and the Tibannas Sector join them. They cut off several major contracts, but instead of cooperating with their demands she sided with Earth, and all together they have mostly defeated those invasion forces, which represent a major loss of combat assets for these several sectors. It appears Earth and its new ally in the form of Illustrious will be advancing deep into these sectors and possibly overrun them." The servant said.

While no one could see or hear air through his robes, Palpatine sighed. Illustrious had been a fine officer and a competent and effective ruler. It was a shame that she had decided to betray him after all the stability and order she had brought to once chaotic space. Despite being an evil power-hungry megalomaniac the Emperor could appreciate her skill as a ruler. But like all others who opposed her, she would be struck down by the might of the dark side with of course the help of the Imperial Navy and Army. Perhaps he would spare her and give her some form of leniency, but this was questionable.

On a strategic level, it meant that resources that would have otherwise been used to stop the rebel alliance's mid-rim offensive would have to be used to fight off Earth. Perhaps letting the Alliance have more territory would allow them to overextend themselves and pave the way for a defeat later on.

And of course, none of it would matter when his new project came online. The construction progress of the second Death Star was preceding well, and when it was done it would crush all of the resistance to his order.

"I want to talk to whoever let this information slip past me. I'm sure it won't happen again." The emperor said.